King Stags and Fairy Queens

Modern religious myth in

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon

Aili Bindberg
A60 Literary Seminar
Autumn 2006
Department of English
Centre for Languages and Literature
Lund University
Supervisor: C. Wadsö Lecaros
Table of contents

INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................................1
SACRIFICE OF THE DIVINE KING ......................................................................................................................4
FAIRIES AS KEEPERS OF THE OLD RELIGION .............................................................................................8
FEMALE POWER AND RELIGION .....................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................................17
WORKS CITED ..........................................................................................................................................................19
Introduction

The Mists of Avalon is a retelling of the Arthurian saga, seen from the perspective of the
female characters. Set at the time of the Saxon invasions, it focuses on the conflict between
the Old Religion of the Druids and priestesses of the Goddess, and the spreading Christianity.
Christianity is gaining strength, and the only hope of the pagans in Avalon is to put a pagan
king on the throne, namely Arthur. To gain the loyalty of the people who follow the Old
Religion, Arthur undergoes a ritual kingmaking and makes the sacred marriage with the land.
In return for the sacred sword Excalibur he swears to honour Christian and pagan alike, but
years later when he breaks that oath, the people of Avalon plot to bring him down and put one
of their own on the throne.
In this essay, I am going to focus on the influences Bradley has used to construct her
historical setting, specifically the pre-Christian religion that she describes in the novel. During
the 19th and 20th centuries different views of pre-Christian religions emerged, some of which
have been proved to be false. The view that Bradley presents in The Mists of Avalon was
introduced by some groundbreaking but controversial scholars. Although their theories have
been refuted they were adopted by religious movements, and have been used in the historical
myth of modern neopagans. Since I find Bradley’s historical setting very believable, it is
interesting to study how this religious aspect affects the ideology of the novel.
Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930-1999) is best known for her numerous novels in the
genres of science fiction and fantasy, but she also wrote gay and lesbian fiction. Even though
she was not a feminist writer, her novels often deal with the situation of women and issues of
sexuality (“Marion Zimmer Bradley”). In the Acknowledgements of The Mists of Avalon, she
lists different sources used for the novel, among others The Golden Bough by J. G. Frazer, the
works of Margaret Murray, books about Gardnerian Wicca and The Spiral Dance by
Starhawk (vii-viii).
Marion Zimmer Bradley has combined two myths in The Mists of Avalon: the Arthurian
myth and the myth of origin of modern neopagan movements. In Mythology in the Modern
Novel, White outlines four methods of using myths in a novel. I would put The Mists of
Avalon in the first category, “the complete renarration of a classical myth,” where the author
“names his chosen mythological characters and settings, so the myths involved are not the
subject of doubt” (52). We have to take into consideration that neither the Arthurian myth nor
the neopagan myth of origin are classical myths, and that the neopagan myth of origin does

1
not actually have characters as such. Nonetheless, my opinion is that both myths are clearly
stated in the novel. Another argument for this interpretation is that Bradley has used the actual
historical setting of the myth rather than a contemporary one.
The above mentioned neopagan myth of origin is referred to by Carrol L. Fry as “the
Neo-Pagan monomyth” (9), while Starhawk calls it “the Origin Story of Contemporary
Goddess Worship” (4). There exists a wide variety of neopagan groups, and it is difficult to
determine exactly which of them use this myth. Other neopagan groups than Goddess
worshippers draw on the myth, but far from all, and even within these groups there are many
that do not. Because of these difficulties in determining who uses it, I will use the term “the
neopagan myth of origin” in a general sense. The myth is to a great extent based on the
research of Egyptologist and anthropologist Margaret Murray, and the archaeological
tradition of the 20th century (Allen pars. 8, 16-21).
Margaret Murray began her career as an Egyptologist, but during World War I she
started to research the history of witchcraft in Great Britain (Simpson 89). By using records
from witch trials and other contemporary sources, she concluded that the witches belonged to
a surviving pre-Christian fertility cult that was in fact the “ancient religion of Western
Europe” (1921, 12). “Witch” was the name the Christians used for the pagan worshippers, and
“the Devil” was what they called their god, since “the God of the old religion becomes the
Devil of the new” (1931, 9). Her theories are mostly centred around the pagan god and the
nature of the worship, but she presented other hypotheses as well. One of them concerns
fairies, who she claimed were a dwarf race that once inhabited Europe and survived until the
16th century (1921, 238; 1931, 34). Another of her subject matters is “the Divine Victim,”
inspired by James Frazer’s The Golden Bough. Murray’s research was very criticised and
disputed, as it was “based on deeply flawed methods and illogical arguments” (Simpson 89).
Despite this, her ideas have survived, partly because she in 1929 wrote the entry on
“Witchcraft” for the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in which she presented her own theories as
undisputed truth. This made them available to the public, and they consequently had a great
influence on popular culture. Gerald Gardner, who founded the religion of Wicca, also
adopted her ideas, which meant a lot for their survival.
Gardner claimed that he was initiated into a coven (a term for a gathering of witches,
resurrected by Murray from the trial records) of witches that had preserved the religion for
centuries. Today it is believed that he created the religion himself, inspired by different
sources. One of the most important sources he used was Murray’s theory of a surviving
primitive fertility cult. Furthermore, he borrowed many elements from Murray’s description

2
of the witches’ worship of the pagan god. He made one important change, however. While
Murray’s theories concern the worship of the Horned God, Gardner emphasised the
importance of the Goddess to the point that she became the central divinity (Simpson 92).
This is consistent with the archaeological tradition from the 19th century until the 1980’s,
where archaeologists frequently found evidence of ancient matriarchal cultures and worship
of a “single goddess figure from antiquity” (Allen pars. 18-19). As a result, Wicca became
attractive to feminists, and soon new feminist traditions appeared. One of the most influential
writers of these traditions is Starhawk, although she prefers to call her religion Witchcraft, not
Wicca (Allen pars. 1-2).
In her book The Spiral Dance from 1979, Starhawk wrote a chapter about the neopagan
myth of origin. Although she described this myth as a legend, she presented it as the history
of witchcraft. With time, as more and more scholars have rejected the facts of the neopagan
myth of origin, even neopagans have begun to view it as myth, not history (Allen pars. 24-
26). A surprisingly large part of Starhawk’s version of the neopagan myth of origin can be
traced back to Murray. While Murray’s aim was to demystify medieval witchcraft and to
discuss it rationally from a new and refreshing point of view, Starhawk uses Murray’s
theories as a religious myth to lend authenticity to her beliefs. In The Spiral Dance, she
claimed that Witchcraft is “perhaps the oldest religion extant in the West” (26).
This naturally raises the question why Bradley chose to use this controversial myth,
which can be seen as either scholarship or mythology, in her novel. In her
Acknowledgements, she stated that “scholars differ so much that I make no apology for
selecting among varying sources, those that best fit the needs of fiction” (viii). I do not think
that this is the whole truth, however. If she, as she claimed, regarded the myth as scholarship,
she could easily have found scholars contemporary with Murray that refuted her theories
because of her flawed methods. Since she writes about a religion very similar to modern
neopaganism in an actual historical setting, it would be easy to assume that her motive was
similar to Starhawk’s; she used the neopagan myth of origin in her novel because she wanted
to give modern neopagan religions some sort of authenticity. Her use of Murray’s theories,
which I will discuss later in the essay, supports this. There is no way to know for certain if
Bradley herself was a neopagan, or if she agreed with the values she portrays in The Mists of
Avalon. According to Bradley’s sister-in-law Diana Paxson, Bradley was trained in the school
of Dion Fortune, a famous occultist who has had considerable influence on neopaganism, and
used that knowledge in The Mists of Avalon (qtd. in Hildebrand 95). At the same time,
Bradley stated in an interview with Carrol L. Fry that she did not know that much about

3
neopaganism and that she was a practicing Christian, although she had had an interest in the
occult since an early age (Fry 76-77).
At first glance, it is quite obvious that Bradley’s pre-Christian religion is very similar to
modern neopaganism. The examples of this would be too many to include in this essay. Fry
writes that “Paganism as it exists in the novel is clearly modeled on Neo Paganism as it is
most frequently practiced today” (73). Hildebrand thinks the same thing, and both authors see
this as an ideological statement, because the message of the neopagan myth of origin is that it
is not new, but has survived since ancient times (Fry 75; Hildebrand 111-112).
In this essay I will study more closely how Bradley has used the theories of Margaret
Murray. I will focus on the aspects of the novel that concern the portrayed history of
paganism. The questions I will try to answer are: How has Bradley used the theories of
Margaret Murray and the neopagan myth of origin? What is their function and importance in
the plot? What effect does this have on the ideological statement of the novel? To do this I
will discuss three aspects of the novel: the sacrifice of the Divine King, fairies as keepers of
the Old Religion, and female power and religion. I aim to prove that Murray’s theories and
neopagan mythology are very important in the novel, and that Bradley’s use of them in
creating the historical background gives the novel a religious message.

Sacrifice of the Divine King

From historical accounts of accused witches Murray concluded that the pagan god was
incarnate in a man, woman or animal, and that the god often dressed in the skin of an animal
(1921, 12). In The God of the Witches she presented evidence of numerous gods from various
places in the world that have the common attribute of horns, which led her to believe that it
was in fact worship of the same deity: the Horned God. She traced the worship of the Horned
God back to the late Palaeolithic period, when he was depicted on the wall of a cave in
France. The man is described as wearing the skin of a stag and wearing its antlers on his head
(9). She also declared that “the stag-man is the most important of the horned figures of the
Palaeolithic period” (10). Later in the book she lists many different animal disguises for the
god, the bull and the stag being the most common (20).
Bradley has chosen to depict the god, called the Horned One, as a stag. In ritual, his
place is taken by real men, wearing horns and other attributes, described as actually becoming
the god. At Arthur’s kingmaking, his sister Morgaine describes how the tribesmen paint “the

4
youth’s body from head to toe with blue woad, covering him with a cloak of untanned raw
skins, smearing his body with the deer fat. On his head they [fix] antlers” (200). She also
describes a cave with paintings of a stag-man, similar to those that Murray used to prove the
Palaeolithic worship of the Horned God.
Murray claimed that she had found convincing evidence that the god was sacrificed in
the primitive cult of Western Europe (1931, 122). Originally, the god was incarnate in the
king or chief of the tribe, and thus the king was sacrificed. Later he was replaced with a
human substitute, first a volunteer, then a criminal, and in later times an animal was used
(1931, 122; 1921, 160). In The God of the Witches, Murray stated that the purpose of the
ritual is that the incarnate god “becomes the giver of fertility to all his kingdom. When the
divine man begins to show signs of age he is put to death lest the spirit of God should also
grow old and weaken” (123). In Britain, this supposedly happened every seven years. Murray
claimed that this tradition survived in secret, and counts among the martyrs of the Witch-cult
William Rufus, Thomas à Becket and Joan of Arc.
In The Mists of Avalon, this practice is described as almost extinct, but traces of it
remain with the Tribes who still follow the Old Religion. Before Arthur’s kingmaking,
Morgaine’s aunt Viviane describes it like this:

In the ancient days, long before the wisdom and the religion of the Druids […], the fairy
people […] lived here on the shores of the inland sea, and before they learned how to plant
the barley and reap it again, they lived by gathering the fruits of the land, and by hunting the
deer. And in those days there were no king among them, but only a queen […] And since
they lived by hunting, their queen and priestess learned to call the deer to her, and ask of
their spirits that they sacrifice themselves and die for the life of the Tribe. But sacrifice must
be given for sacrifice–the deer died for the Tribe, and one of the Tribe must in turn die for
the life of the deer, or at least take the chance that the deer could, if they chose, take his life
in exchange for their own. […] So the Mother of the Tribe chose, every year, her consort.
[…] [W]hen the year was past–every year in those times–he would put on the antlers of the
deer, and wear a robe of untanned deerskin so that the deer would think him one of their
own, and he would run with the herd as the Mother Huntress put the spell upon them to run.
But by this time the herd had chosen their King Stag, and sometimes the King Stag would
smell a stranger, and turn on him. And then the Horned One would die. […] Well, time has
moved on, […] and now those old rites are no longer needed, for the barley grows and the
sacrifice is bloodless. Only in times of great peril does the Tribe demand such a leader. And
Raven has foreseen that this is a time of such peril. […] [T]he chosen one will be tested by
the ancient rite. And if he survives the testing […] then he will become the Horned One, the
King Stag, consort of the Virgin Huntress, crowned with the antlers of the God. (196-97)

In the passage above, the similarities between Murray’s Divine Victim and Bradley’s
sacrificed king are obvious, although Bradley introduces the idea of an exchange with the
deer, and a possible sacrifice. Another difference is that the sacrifice used to happen every
year, instead of every seven years. Earlier in the novel, however, in the prophecy referred to

5
in the quote above, the priestess Raven speaks of an interval of seven years: “Ah–seven times
the Wheel, the Wheel with thirteen spokes, has turned about in the sky … seven times the
Mother has given birth to her dark son …” (193). There are no other references to an interval
of seven years, and it does not have any significance in the story. It is possible that Bradley
mentioned it because she wanted her version of the ritual to be compatible with Murray’s.
We know that Ban, High King of Less Britain, made the Great Marriage with the land.
Furthermore, Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon, went through a kingmaking ritual on Dragon
Island when he was crowned High King, but he was not tested by the ancient rite, and he did
not have to make the Great Marriage with the land. Two reasons are given for this; he was
already a warrior, so he did not need to be tested, and the Merlin had already pledged to die
for the land, so there was no need for Uther to do the same (119, 188). Arthur, on the other
hand, is a young, “unbloodied” boy, and he needs to go through both rites.
The reason for the ritual is to gain the loyalty of the people who follow the Old
Religion. Uther describes his own kingmaking as rites “such as no Christian man should
know; but the Old People, who were here long before ever the Romans came to these isles,
would not acknowledge me king without them” (119). After Arthur has become king, he
swears an oath to Avalon “to deal fairly with all men, whether or no they follow the God of
the Christians, and always to reverence the Gods of Avalon” (235). This puts Arthur in a
difficult position, since the Church wants to destroy all traces of the Old Religion, and Arthur
is supposedly a Christian king. In the end, it is Arthur’s pious queen Gwenhwyfar that
convinces him to break his oath. Arthur is torn between two forces: the Christians, who want
Christianity to be the only religion, and the pagans, who want to continue to practice their
own religion. Throughout the novel, Arthur’s inner conflict mirrors the conflict of Britain’s
conversion to Christianity.
The ritual is important because it brings on Arthur’s downfall. When Arthur makes the
Great Marriage, Morgaine takes the role of the Virgin Huntress, although neither of them
recognises each other. Since the ritual is a fertility rite, the inevitable result is a son, Mordred.
The reason why Viviane arranged this incestuous union was to “make certain of the royal
blood” (189). The son of Arthur and Morgaine would be heir to both Uther Pendragon, which
the Christians would recognise, and to Avalon, which the pagans would recognise.
Furthermore, Arthur’s love for Morgaine would make her the power behind the throne. The
plan fails, however, when Morgaine, horrified to discover herself pregnant with her brother,
leaves Avalon for the dubious care of her scheming aunt Morgause. Morgause makes sure
that Mordred is estranged from both his parents and has no love for them. Morgaine’s

6
rejection of Arthur is a large part of the reason why he turns away from Avalon. Towards the
end of the novel he tells Morgaine, “What is the Goddess to me? […] I saw her always in
your face, but you turned away from me, and when the Goddess rejected me, I sought another
God…” (998). When Arthur breaks his oath to protect the Old Religion, the rulers of Avalon
are outraged. They try to remind him of his oath, but their efforts are in vain. Finally,
Morgaine challenges him with the help of her lover and champion Accolon.
A phrase that is repeated throughout the book is “what of the King Stag when the young
stag is grown?”. Traditionally, when the king grew old he was challenged and defeated by a
younger man, and the land was renewed. In this case, Arthur wins and Accolon dies. Later
Mordred challenges Arthur, even though he knows it is a lost cause. He says,

For what else was I begotten and born, but for this moment when I challenge you for a cause
that is no longer within the borders of this world? I no longer even know why I am to
challenge you–only that there is nothing else left in my life but for this hatred. (997)

Arthur manages to kill Mordred, but dies himself from his wounds. Morgaine knows that the
days of the Old Religion are past, that it is “the end of an age. […] [T]he King Stag had killed
the young stag, and there would be none after him…” (999).
Another consequence of Arthur’s betrayal is that his court is broken up. When
Morgaine finds out that Arthur is going to use the cup of Avalon’s Holy Regalia to celebrate
the Christian mass at Pentecost, she takes the role of the Goddess and lets those present drink
out of it. Everyone sees a different vision depending on his or her religion. Arthur’s Christian
knights are convinced that they have seen the Holy Grail, so they go on a search for it, and the
Knights of the Round Table are scattered. This is the beginning of the end of Arthur’s great
reign, and consequently the ritual that made Arthur king also brings about his betrayal and
downfall.
The motif of the sacrificed king gives the narrative a sense of destiny; the young stag
will inevitably grow up, and the King Stag must be sacrificed. Unsurprisingly, the novel ends
with a sense of loss; the Old Religion is disappearing and Arthur’s great reign has come to an
end.
As mentioned above, the ritual that Arthur participated in was required to gain the
loyalty of the Tribes, who are the pagan population in The Mists of Avalon. In the quote
above, Viviane also mentions the fairy people who lived in Britain in ancient times. In the
next section I will examine the different peoples who follow the Old Religion, and show how
they are related to each other.

7
Fairies as keepers of the Old Religion

Murray described fairies as “the descendants of the early people who inhabited northern
Europe.” This primitive people used stone in the Neolithic period and metal in the Bronze
Age to make their tools and weapons (1931, 34). Successive invasions forced them to live in
less hospitable parts of the country, or to live in mounds on heaths and moors, and to stay
hidden except at night (1931, 34; 1921, 14). According to Murray the fairies became known
as powerful magicians because “the conqueror always regards the religion of the conquered as
superior to his own in the arts of evil magic” (1921, 14). By looking at Neolithic skeletal
remains, Murray concluded in The God of the Witches that fairies were “short in stature, the
height of the men being about 5 feet 5 inches and the women proportionately less. They were
long-headed and probably had dark complexions” (33). In The Witch-Cult in Western Europe,
Murray stated that the cult of this primitive people survived until the 16th century. Witches
and fairies were closely connected, in fact the people of the cult, or the fairies, were also
known as witches (238). To Murray, the surviving primitive people, the fairies, and the
witches (or pagans) were the same.
In The Mists of Avalon, there are three kinds of people who could be associated with
Murray’s fairies. All three peoples are short and dark, like Murray’s fairies, and while
Bradley makes a distinction between them, it is not entirely clear what it is. The three peoples
are the Tribes, the Old People and the fairies. Bradley also mentions “the little people” or “the
little folk,” and it seems that she thereby sometimes refers to the Old People and sometimes to
the Tribes. We know that Murray’s fairies and Bradley’s peoples are the same because of a
number of things: their appearance, their primitive tools of an earlier civilisation, and their
function as preservers of the Old Religion as well as their close connection to the witches (see
fig. 1).

8
Margaret Murray Fairies

• are a surviving Neolithic race

• are short and dark
• live on heaths and moors
• are ruled by the Fairy Queen
• are the origin of the Old Religion
• are human without supernatural powers

The Mists of Avalon Fairies

• are short and dark, but

The Tribes
• are a primitive people
preserving old pagan
traditions
• are short and dark
• live on Dragon Island
(in the real world)
• belong to the Old
Religion
• are human without
supernatural powers
The Old People
• are a primitive people
with primitive weapons
• are short and dark
• live in a world, with their
own cities and roads, that
is drifting away from the
real world like Avalon is
• belong to the Old
Religion
• are human without
supernatural powers
taller than Tribesmen
• live in the fairy kingdom,
which is even farther
from the real world than
Avalon
• are ruled by the Fairy
Queen
• are the origin of the Old
Religion
• are non-human and have
the Sight and powerful
magic

Fig. 1
Sometimes the three groups seem to be different from each other, and at other times
they appear to be almost the same. That there is a distinction between the three is made clear
in this paragraph: “The Tribes were sworn to follow the banner of the Pendragon […] and the
little folk of the days before the Tribes, they came too, with their bronze axes and flint
hatchets and elf-arrows–no more than the fairy folk can they bear cold iron” (478). There are

9
other instances when there seems to be a difference between them, for example when a fairy
is described as “like to one of the little Tribesmen, only taller” (465).
On several occasions it is difficult to know the difference between the peoples,
however. Viviane, who is called “[a] fairy woman, indeed: a woman of the Old People” (11),
speaks of the Tribes as “[t]he Tribes of the fairy folk” (197). At one point in the novel the
“little folk” of the Welsh hills bring Morgaine flowers from the border of the fairy country
and she says, “It was not for nothing that I had been given that old name, Morgaine of the
Fairies . . . and now they acknowledged me as their priestess and their queen” (681). The
Queen of Faerie furthermore tells Morgaine that she “bear[s] the royal line of the Old People,
and thus [is her] far kinswoman.” From this I conclude that the Old People are the
descendants of the fairies and that the Tribes came later, but Bradley does not clarify how the
Tribes are related to the others.
One important difference between the peoples is where they live. Viviane tells her sister
at the beginning of the novel that “[t]here are now two Britains […] [the world of the
Christians] […] and, beside it and behind it, the world where the Great Mother still rules, the
world where the Old People have chosen to live and worship” (15). This is the same world as
Avalon; it is no longer part of the real world, and it drifts farther and farther away. The fairies
live in a country even farther from the real world than Avalon, so far that they are only legend
to most people. Lancelet states that “never did I know of living man or woman who had seen
either dragon or fairy” (361-362). It is reasonable to assume that the Tribes still live in the real
world, because their island, Dragon Island, is invaded by Saxons at the end of the novel, and
the people are hunted down and killed.
We find evidence in the novel that Bradley’s Old People, just like Murray’s fairies, are
human beings, with similar characteristics. Murray wrote that fairies

had a disconcerting habit of appearing and disappearing when least expected, a habit which
seemed magical to the slow-moving heavy-footed agriculturists of the villages. Yet dexterity
in taking cover was only natural in a people who must often have owed their lives to
quickness of movement and ability to remain motionless. (1931, 36-37)

Bradley’s little dark men have the same ability. When pursued by Arthur, Morgaine tells the
men to shatter, and “one by one it was as if they melted into the trees and mists … they could
move like shadows if they must, and no man alive could find them if they did not want to be
found” (864). Both examples describe extraordinary, but not supernatural, abilities.
The fairies are important because they provide a historical background for the novel.
They are the source of the Old Religion in ancient times long forgotten, and they preserve it

10
for all future. They function as a stronghold for the Old Religion, just like Murray’s fairies. In
The Mists of Avalon, the fairies are the only followers of the Old Religion who appear
unaffected by the conversion to Christianity; only at the end do we get the impression that
their existence might be threatened. They are tangible, yet they do not have the limitations
that humans have. Their religion is not dependent on the fallible structures that humans need;
the Queen tells us that fairies “know neither Gods nor Goddesses, but only the breast of
[their] mother who is beneath [their] feet and above [their] heads, from whom [they] come
and to whom [they] go when [their] time is ended” (260). Bradley’s fairies are not wholly
human, and they are the ancestors to the Royal line of Avalon. It is from them that the
priestesses of Avalon have inherited the Sight, i.e. the ability to see into the future and the
present. The Queen of Faery tells Morgaine, “I had forgotten that where the fairy blood is
dilute, the Sight comes down to you maimed and incomplete” (259). In other words, the
fairies are more powerful and can see the future even better than the priestesses of Avalon
can. In this respect Bradley’s fairies differ from Murray’s fairies, as Murray did not see fairies
as non-human with supernatural powers.
The fairies are clearly allies with Avalon; they are instrumental in Morgaine’s plot to
overthrow Arthur. The first time Morgaine meets the Queen of Faery she tries to stop her
from killing her unborn child, and offers to foster it in the fairy country because of her
foreknowledge of what is to happen. Later, the Queen of Faery helps Morgaine when her
lover Accolon needs to be tested before he challenges Arthur. She also helps Morgaine when
she leads Arthur into the fairy country to take his sword Excalibur. At the same time, there are
times when the fairies’ motives seem less helpful. At one point in the novel, they trick
Morgaine into staying five years in their country against her knowledge and will, for reasons
they keep to themselves.
At the end of the book, Avalon and the fairy country come even closer to each other; it
is easy to stray from Avalon into the fairy country, and Morgaine becomes the Queen of
Faery: “[N]ow she knew why she had never again caught sight of the queen within the land of
Fairy. I am the queen now. There is no Goddess but this, and I am she…” (938).
According to Murray, the fairies were ruled by a woman. She also connected fairies and
witches, which would suggest that the pagan women also had a strong position in their
community. In the next section I am going to look at the position of women in Murray and
Bradley’s pre-Christian religions.

11
Female power and religion

Simpson claims that Murray’s witchcraft was “a thoroughly patriarchal affair,” and that its
only god was male (92). This is true to an extent, because Murray’s theories do concentrate on
a male deity. She explained it, however, with the fact that “at the time when the cult is
recorded the worship of the male deity appears to have superseded that of the female,” and
consequently the God appears in female form only on rare occasions (1921, 13). This seems
to indicate that a female deity could have had a more important position in the cult in the past.
Furthermore, Murray mentioned the two-faced god Janus/Dianus as another form of the god,
and connected the cult to Diana, the female form of the name, which is the name of the female
deity or leader of the witches. This is the reason why she called the religion “the Dianic cult”
(1921, 12). The position of the most important woman in the cult is not clear. Murray agreed
with another scholar who claimed that she had been worshipped by women as a Mother-
Goddess, but at the same time she stated that when women had a divine position it was
mainly as a substitute for the male god (1921, 13-14).
While it is difficult to find a goddess in Murray’s cult, female worshippers were
important. The Incarnate God was the leader, also called Chief, of the Coven, but a woman or
man could act as a substitute. The positions in the organisation were usually filled by men,
but all of them, including Chief, could be filled by women as well (1931, 47-48). Murray
wrote about religion in general that

[e]arly priesthoods appear to have been largely composed of women; as the religion
changed, men gradually took over the practice of the ritual. […] But when a religion is
decaying and a new one taking its place the women often remain faithful and carry on the
old rites, being then obliged to act as priestesses. These changes are seen in the cult of the
Horned God. (1931, 44)

According to Murray the most important woman in the cult was often called the Queen of
Faerie, or the Elfin Queen (1921, 14). As discussed above, Murray’s fairies and witches were
closely connected, if not identical, and the fairies were said to have a matriarchal society. In
The God of the Witches Murray wrote that the queen seemed to be the real ruler in the fairies’
society, and that the king had a secondary place, at least in times of peace (37). Since Murray
maintained that fairies were known as witches, it would be reasonable to infer that witches
had a matriarchal society, at least in the past. Another important female in the cult was the
Maiden, who was the next most powerful person in the Coven, and always sat at the right

12
hand of the God at feasts. According to Murray, one famous Maiden was Joan of Arc, who
was known as the Maid of France (1931, 47-48). She belonged to the Old Religion and was
sacrificed as a divine substitute (1931, 146). Murray also mentioned the Queen of Sabbath,
and she came back to the female deity by stating that “[t]he Queen of Sabbath may perhaps be
considered as an official during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, though in early times
she was probably the chief personage in the cult […]” (1921, 189). In summary, Murray
stressed the importance of female worshippers, despite the patriarchal structure of the cult,
and did not exclude a female deity; she even found it probable that the deity of the cult was
female in earlier times. She also connects witches to fairies, who had a matriarchal society.
When Gerald Gardner adopted Murray’s ideas he gave the female deity a superior
position to the male, and made the leader of the coven a woman. The Goddess movement,
with authors like Starhawk, also gave the Goddess a greater importance than the God, and it is
this view we find in The Mists of Avalon.
The Royal line of Avalon is matrilineal, and it is the women that hold the power among
the pagans. Viviane became the Lady of Avalon after her mother, and since Viviane has no
daughter, only sons, her sister’s daughter Morgaine is to succeed her. The Christians, on the
other hand, are of course patriarchal, and it is not accepted for women to hold any power
among them. Both Morgaine and her aunt Morgause marry kings who are not good
Christians, and while the kings still have a higher position than their queens, they do not mind
having them as co-rulers. Igraine explains the importance of the queen by describing her as a
symbol “of the central strength behind all the armies and the wars–the home and center for
which the men rall[y] their strength…” (318). Arthur offers his queen Gwenhwyfar to rule by
his side, but as she is deeply Christian she does not feel that it is a woman’s place, and says,
“I could never presume so far, my lord and my king” (314). Christianity is portrayed as a
religion of men in the novel, but the Old Religion has a place for both men and women.
The priestesses of Avalon only accept women for training, while the Druids, who also
live on Avalon but separate from the women, only train men. The Lady of Avalon is the
leader of the priestesses, and the Merlin, or the Messenger of the Gods, is the leader of the
Druids. Their religions are different, and yet they work together, celebrate holidays together
and worship the same gods, at least partly. The worship of the Goddess is described as older
than the religion of the Druids, and the priests and priestesses learn different things. In several
ways the women seem superior to the men. The Goddess is the major deity, and the
priestesses learn about her will through the Sight. This ability is inherited from the fairies, and
although diluted, it is more developed in the Royal line of Avalon than in other people. The

13
Merlin, despite being the Messenger of the Gods, does not have the Sight: “The Goddess does
not make her will known to me” (188). He defers decisions to Viviane, saying, “That I leave
to your wisdom. You, not I, are the voice of the Goddess” (198). Not only do the women
know the Goddess’ will, they are also goddess-like by nature. Morgaine tells us that “a lady
of Avalon bends the knee to no human power. Merlin would kneel […] [to Arthur]; Viviane,
never, for she was not only the priestess of the Goddess, but incorporated the Goddess within
herself in a way the man-priests of male Gods could never know or understand” (231). This
superior power of women also translates to other areas in life.
Murray wrote that among the fairies “marriage laws were non-existent, as was the case
among the Picts; and the fairy-queen in particular was never bound to one husband only. This
laxness of morals may have been one reason why the Christian Church […] so hated the
fairies” (1931, 37). The pagan women in The Mists of Avalon are likewise free to choose their
own partner. Niniane, the Lady of Avalon, calls it “the right the Goddess has given to all
women, to choose what man she will” (980). It is accepted for women to have sexual
relationships even if they are not married. Igraine tells her flirtatious sister Morgause that
among their own people “maidenhood is of no great consequence–a woman of proven
fertility, swelling with a healthy child, is a most desirable wife. But it is not so with these
Christians, I tell you; they will treat you as one shamed” (84). Viviane has several sons with
different men, and because she is a priestess she cannot belong to one man.
Since power is inherited through the female line, it is the queen who chooses the king,
not the other way around. From Avalon’s point of view they put Arthur on the throne, and
they can take him down. After Arthur’s betrayal, Morgaine seeks to be queen so that she can
put her lover Accolon on the throne. Mordred is outraged at Gwenhwyfar’s adultery and says
that “[b]y Avalon’s laws, Gwenhwyfar has done no more than is right–the lady shall choose
who she will for her consort, and Arthur should be overthrown by Lancelet!” (979). Earlier in
the novel, Queen Gwenhwyfar was held hostage by a man who hoped to become king by
forcing the queen to take him as her lover, which would be possible with the old laws.
According to Murray, another important part of the ancient cult was the sexual rites.
She wrote that the Sacred Marriage usually took place once a year, but that there were other
sexual rites as well, which did not happen at a fixed season. The Sacred Marriage is defined
as “an attempt to influence the course of nature by magic, the people who practise the rite
believing that thereby all crops and herds as well as the women were rendered fertile, and that
barrenness was averted” (1921, 177-178).

14
 The people of Avalon, the people on Dragon Island and many of the common people
still follow these traditions, although the Christian priests do their best to stop them. At
specific holidays they perform sexual rites. If the ritual results in a child the child is known as
a child of the Goddess; often the father is not even known. When the Merlin tells Igraine that
he fathered her, she is surprised, because “no pious man should claim fatherhood to a child of
the Goddess” (20). The women, however, keep their usual parental rights.
Virginity has great significance among the priestesses of Avalon. Some rituals seem to
require that the priestess is a virgin, as when Morgaine is the Virgin Huntress at Arthur’s
kingmaking. Ironically, the only women who do not have the Goddess-given right to choose
“what man [they] will” are her priestesses. Many maidens of Avalon are ordered to preserve
their virginity, “till the Mother makes her will known” (156). This way the Lady of Avalon
can use the maidens for her own political agenda. There is a clear resemblance between
Bradley’s maidens and Murray’s Maiden of the Coven, even though Bradley does not always
use the Maiden as a position, as Murray does.
In the novel, Bradley describes a culture with few sexual taboos. Viviane does not
hesitate to let Morgaine bear a child to her own brother, and although Morgaine is ashamed at
first, she later realises that she has been influenced by Christian rules. As mentioned earlier, it
is also accepted for women to have sexual relationships when unmarried, and to bear children
to many different men. When examining this aspect of the novel, it is obvious that The Mists
of Avalon contains heavy criticism of patriarchy in general, and Christianity in particular. The
still surviving Roman culture is the stronghold of patriarchal values in the novel, together
with the Church. The pagan view of women and female sexuality is described as much better
than the Christian view, especially for women but also for men, and the disappearance of the
Old Religion is portrayed as a great loss. Hildebrand suggests that the superior position of
women in the novel and the way that men are described as the Other makes the novel more
accessible to a female reader (122-123).
The feminist message of The Mists of Avalon is perhaps its most prominent message,
and it has been commented on by many critics. It is clearly a criticism of patriarchy, but it is
not easy to define exactly what Bradley’s intention was. Since the novel is written from a
female perspective, and the women of the Old Religion have a superior position to men, it is
easy to take for granted that Bradley is portraying an alternative society that is preferable to
patriarchy. Interestingly, Hildebrand, among others, accuses The Mists of Avalon of
containing inherent patriarchal views, although Hildebrand disagrees with earlier critics on
several points. Morgaine’s aunt Morgause, for example, could be seen as perhaps the only

15
truly evil character in the novel. She is characterised mainly through her promiscuous
sexuality, and is, according to Hildebrand, “link[ing] evil with female sexuality” (121).
Hildebrand also finds Bradley’s portrayal of Morgause “and the prudery and condemnation
displayed by Morgaine […] deeply disturbing” (122). I do not agree with this interpretation.
The scene Hildebrand refers to occurs early in the novel when Morgaine is still affected by
her Christian upbringing, as we can see from her reaction to the fact that she is pregnant with
her brother. The paragraph in question continues with Morgaine contemplating virtue and the
fact that it means opposite things to pagans and Christians. She concludes with the thought
that to a Christian she herself must seem no better than a harlot (250-251). Later in the novel,
she has come to terms both with the incest and her own affair with her elderly husband’s son,
and has no reason to condemn Morgause for doing similar things. Additionally, I think her
condemnation can be traced to something else, namely the fact that Morgause’s behaviour is
perhaps best described as hedonistic, while Morgaine is a priestess trained to have rigorous
control over her own body and needs. Throughout the novel, Morgause’s evilness is
connected to her ruthless ambition. It cannot be denied, however, that she has the most overt
sexual behaviour of all the female characters. The question is if that is necessarily linked to
her evilness, or if it is just another aspect of her most dominant character trait, to take
whatever she wants, using any means?
Hildebrand writes that “[d]espite its attack on patriarchal understanding of power, The
Mists of Avalon condones certain hierarchical structures” (116). In the novel, the usual sexist
hierarchy where men hold all the power is replaced with another, where women dominate. I
do not think, like Hildebrand and the critics she quotes, that it is condoned in the novel. The
question of power and who has the right to rule others’ lives is one of the big moral questions
of the narrative. The absolute power of the Lady of Avalon is not described as a good thing;
in the end it leads only to death and defeat. Therefore, I claim that the novel could be seen as
a criticism of authoritarian power structures, whether it is women or men that uphold them.
Matriarchal non-authoritarian societies, on the other hand, are described as good, or at least
completely natural, and so is the separation of the sexes in religious ritual (except, of course,
in the sexual rites). This can hardly be seen as patriarchal. On the contrary, a clear division of
the genders seems to have been a common thought among Goddess-worshippers at the time
the novel was written1.

1
For an account of Goddess worship and how its view of gender has developed over time, see Starhawk’s The
Spiral Dance, especially chapter 2, The World View of Witchcraft, and Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary
Edition.

16
Conclusion

The Mists of Avalon is set in an actual historical period of time, and describes an event that
actually took place: the conversion from paganism to Christianity. Other events are mythical:
the legend of king Arthur, and the neopagan myth of origin. In this essay I have studied how
Bradley has used the theories of Margaret Murray and the neopagan myth of origin, what
importance and function they have in the plot, and what effect they have on the message of
the novel.
The Sacrifice of the Divine King is the main motif of the novel. It is obvious that
Bradley has borrowed Murray’s ideas about a Horned God that is sacrificed for the good of
the land. At Arthur’s kingmaking he takes the place of the God, later to be sacrificed. The
ritual that Arthur participates in when he is made king results in a son, who later kills him
when he breaks his oath to treat Christian and pagan alike. Hence the same ritual that makes
Arthur king also brings him down.
The fairies, who have belonged to the Old Religion since ancient times, provide a
historical background to the narrative. Murray described fairies as a surviving Neolithic race
who belonged to the Old Religion. Bradley has divided Murray’s fairies into three groups
with slightly different characteristics: the fairies, the Old People and the Tribes. As the
ancestors and helpers of the people of Avalon, all three are closely connected to the pagan
side of the conflict.
In The Mists of Avalon the pagan women have a higher position than the men. They
have a close relationship to the Goddess, the major deity, which men do not have. Their
society being matriarchal and matrilineal, women have a lot of freedom in their sexual
behaviour. Bradley depicts a society that speaks to a female reader, and that is presented as a
positive alternative to patriarchal Christianity. This kind of society is very similar to Murray’s
description of the fairies’ society, and is regarded as ideal by many modern Goddess
worshippers.
These three subjects are all of vital importance in the narrative. Together they form the
foundation of the story, with the events of the Arthurian myth taking place on the surface.
They help create the moral message of the novel as well as a sense of destiny and loss, but
more importantly they construct a historical view of paganism that is far removed from what
scholars believe today. The fact that Bradley chose to use this controversial scholarship in her
novel is quite odd, but her reason for using it will probably never be known. Other
conclusions can be drawn from her use of the myth, however.

17
 Since the neopagan myth of origin asserts that the Old Religion has survived since
ancient times, and since The Mists of Avalon contains many of the most important elements of
this myth, I have to conclude that the novel represents this myth as truth. Bradley had a choice
to use more accurate scholarship to create the historical background of her novel, but she
chose to use Murray’s theories. Whether it was intentional of not, the only possible
conclusion is that The Mists of Avalon is a novel with an obvious religious message.

18
Works Cited

Primary source:
Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon (1983). London: Sphere Books Ltd, 1988.

Secondary sources:
Allen, Charlotte. “The Scholars and the Goddess.” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 287 No. 1 (2001):
26 pars. 9 October 2006. <http://elin.lub.lu.se.ludwig.lub.lu.se/cgi-bin/linker/
ebsco_local?3918563>
Fry, Carrol L. “The Goddess Ascending: Feminist Neo-Pagan Witchcraft in Marian Zimmer
Bradley s Novels.” Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 27 (1993): 67-80.
Hildebrand, Kristina. The Female Reader at the Round Table: Religion and Women in Three
Contemporary Arthurian Texts. Uppsala: Uppsala University. 2001.
“Marion Zimmer Bradley.” 2004. Contemporary Authors Online. Gale. University Library,
Lund University. 10 Oct. 2006.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The Witch-cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1921.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The God of the Witches (1931). Castle Hedingham: The Daimon
Press Limited. 1962.
Simpson, Jaqueline. “Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why?” Folklore, Vol. 105
(1994): 89-96.
Starhawk (Miriam Simos). The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great
Goddess (1979). New York: HarperCollins Publishers. 1999.
White, John J. Mythology in the Modern Novel: A Study of Prefigurative Techniques.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1971.

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